The Altaic Languages are a group of languages comprising three subgroups:
- Mongol
- Manchu-Tungus
- Turkish languages
Altaic languages have often been considered distantly related to other notable language families. Until recently, the most popular theory was that these languages were related to Japanese and Ainu. However, those languages have now been shown to be isolates unrelated to any others. Altaic languages are most likely to be related to the Afro-Asiatic family. However, this relationship is very distant.
Altaic languages are characterized by agglutinative polysynthetic morphology. This is similar to many Native American languages. Phonologically, a widespread characteristic of Altaic languages is vowel harmony.
This group of langauges is spoken in parts of the Soviet Union, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Korea and Mongolia.
Sources
The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989.